The next morning didn't feel tense.
It felt precise.
That was worse.
Students moved the way people do when they've recently burned their hand on a stove—not panicked, not frozen, just careful. The air inside the Triangle wasn't heavy with enforcement anymore. It was heavy with awareness.
Dreyden noticed it during first bell.
Reaction time drills in the mid-tier hall. Forty students lined up in rows. No enforcement personnel in sight. No obvious suppression grid adjustments.
Just… instructors.
Smiling.
Polite.
Watching too closely.
"Today we're recalibrating evaluation thresholds," the instructor announced casually. "Nothing dramatic. Just refinement."
Refinement.
Dreyden didn't look at Lucas, who stood two rows to his right, but he felt the flicker of Luck like static brushing the back of his skull.
The floor lit up.
Targets appeared.
Start.
Students moved.
Punch. Slide. Pivot.
Dreyden responded cleanly, controlled, efficient.
But he wasn't watching the targets.
